Posts by Kate Scott
Poverty: The Elephant (or Giant, Bloodthirsty Rat) in the Room
Published July 29, 2009 @ 05:08AM PT
Among more pleasant things, like snoballs and crawfish, it seems that summer in post-Katrina New Orleans is marked by horrific, nearly unbelievable local news stories involving some sort of gory death or injury. In 2006, for example, Zachary Bowman strangled, dismembered and cooked his girlfriend before committing suicide by jumping from the roof a French Quarter hotel. Ideally, these hair-raising stories might spark more informed conversations amongst both our elected leaders and everyday residents about issues ranging from mental health to recreational activities for our young people to policing and crime prevention.
Recently, another horrifying news story surfaced in the New Orleans area. On July 18, three-month old Natalie Hill’s parents awoke to find Natalie dead in her crib, with hundreds of what looked to be rat bites all over her. Her nose and part of one of her legs had been completely chewed off. There were bloody rodent footprints in the crib and on the floor around it. Since then, the Jefferson Parish Coroner’s Office has ruled that Natalie did indeed bleed to death from rat bites.
Although many people jumped to conclusions about the quality of Natalie's parental care in the wake of this horrific death, this is really a story about poverty and the quality of our affordable housing stock.
Dirty Laundry and Disaster Relief
Published July 08, 2009 @ 06:50AM PT
I was visiting my mom over the long weekend, which meant I had access to cable television. As committed as I am to abolishing the prison industrial complex, I'll be the first to admit that I jump at the chance to veg out during Law and Order marathons whenever I visit mom. This time around though, there was a series of highly irritating commercials in heavy rotation that kept distracting me from the innovative and unpredictable plot lines of crime drama shows. The commercials were for the Tide Loads of Hope program.
If you've never heard of Loads of Hope, it's basically a portable laundromat that Tide transports to disaster affected areas so that people can have clean clothes even when they might be in precarious living situations. I believe that the program started after Hurricane Katrina.
Simple, kind, and well-intentioned, right? I'm sure people devastated by natural disasters (or floods related to weather events as is the case with Katrina and New Orleans) really do appreciate the service. But as a Gulf Coast resident, this feels like a marketing ploy driven and sustained by our suffering. When it comes down to it, how much more money is Tide spending on airing television spots about Loads of Hope than on funding the portable laundromat and supplies? How has this campaign improved Tide's corporate image, and how many people buy bottles of Tide with yellow caps because they like the idea that their money is funding a program like Loads of Hope? And how much money that could have gone directly to local non-profits engaged long-term in disaster recovery has been redirected to Tide as it passes through the Gulf Coast?
It's That Time Again
Published June 24, 2009 @ 05:54AM PT
It is Atlantic hurricane season again. As this time rolls around, I find myself happy to be living in a second floor apartment and nervous about the prospect of another storm coming our way. In addition to the terrible stress that impending storms bring to residents of a region still trying to recover from the physical and emotional damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina, evacuation is expensive. Further, the mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Gustav last year, which was the largest evacuation in U.S. history, demonstrated that local, state and federal officials haven’t done enough in the last four years to make the evacuation process easier, particularly for our poorest and most vulnerable residents.
Evacuation for a hurricane is a human rights issue. In the New Orleans area, shoddy levee construction and environmental degradation mean that it might not even take a direct hit from a hurricane to flood the entire city and drown thousands of people. We have to consciously construct policies that make it possible for everyone to evacuate.
Though this is not an exhaustive list, there are a few things I’ve learned about through my own work and relationships, along with the work of other advocates and organizers that need to change in order for everybody to be able to evacuate.
Did He Really Just Say Geography of Opportunity??!
Published June 10, 2009 @ 04:59AM PT
This week, I am at the annual conference of the National Fair Housing Alliance in Washington, DC. The conference is an opportunity for fair housing advocates to come together and get updates about how our work is playing out across the country. Fair housing work is intricately connected to the struggle against poverty because where you live determines your access to so many other resources.
One exciting aspect of this year’s conference is that the U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Dept of Justice (USDOJ) are actively demonstrating a renewed commitment to civil rights after eight years of the Bush Administration’s apathy and hostility to civil and human rights. HUD Secretary Donovan and other new administration officials spoke at the conference, and their ideas, commitments, and knowledge were overall refreshing.
Some aspects of Secretary Donovan’s keynote address that were particularly exciting were:
Access Denied
Published May 27, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
In a post from several weeks ago, Leigh helpfully reminded us all that “disablism” is an issue for anti-poverty advocates to keep front and center in our struggle for equal housing opportunities. Last week, my organization released the results of the first audit study on disability discrimination in New Orleans housing since Hurricane Katrina.
Access Denied: An Audit of Housing Accessibility for People with Physical Disabilities in the Greater New Orleans Rental Housing Market demonstrates that 100% of the twenty-two complexes investigated (all built within the past five years) were inaccessible to people with physical disabilities according to the standards set forth under the Fair Housing Act as amended in 1988. Violations included a lack of curb cuts that would allow access from a parking lot to units or common areas, bathroom walls that are not reinforced to allow for the installation of grab bars, and kitchens/bathrooms that are impossible for a wheelchair user to navigate.
These results amount to illegal discrimination against people with disabilities but are disturbing for several additional reasons when we consider context.
Policies that Make People Disappear
Published May 13, 2009 @ 05:47AM PT
I visited Chicago for the first time ever last week to participate in a panel about affordable housing in Chicago and New Orleans. The comparisons are striking and frightening.
In 1998, the Chicago Housing Authority embarked on its “Plan for Transformation,” a HOPE VI funded, ten-year plan designed to demolish traditional public housing and replace it with “mixed income” housing. According to the CHA website, the Plan “will improve the appearance, quality and culture of public housing in Chicago.” From a starting point of 38,000 units, the Plan calls for the demolition of 22,000 units and the replacement of 9,000 units, with an end count of 25,000 units.
Not surprisingly, there was resistance to the Plan. HOPE VI developments are notorious for permanently displacing residents. But I was particularly struck by one community organizer’s testimony from an older public housing resident who opposed the Plan. This gentleman had experienced urban renewal decades ago. He said that he opposed the demolition of public housing buildings because the buildings themselves remind others that people like him exist.
This observation was striking, and I thought of many examples of how post-Katrina policies have literally made people disappear.
Mass Incarceration: An Unacceptable Strategy for Poverty Reduction
Published April 29, 2009 @ 05:00AM PT
One reason that people are so drawn to New Orleans post 2005 is that Hurricane Katrina and our ensuing struggle for reconstruction have laid bare the disparities that arise from social problems like racism and poverty. It’s always interesting to see post-Katrina volunteers making connections between what they observe here and the problems they witness back in their own communities all across the country. One area where this has become particularly clear to me is in our national policy of mass incarceration, which has been carried to an extreme in Louisiana and New Orleans.
